Transmitting mechanical power often involves a prime mover, e.g., a gasoline or diesel engine, coupled in some way to a driven load. All automobiles (as well as many other types of machines) have some means of transmitting mechanical power from an engine to the driving wheels.
One way of doing so is by using a mechanical transmission of the manual gear-shifting type whereby the engine is coupled to the load, such load being the weight of the vehicle "reflected" through the driving wheels and the transmission to the engine. Another way to transmit mechanical power is through an automatic transmission of the torque-converter type. But these exemplary transmissions all include some device or mechanism, e.g., a manually-operated clutch, to cushion the flow of power as well as to wholly disconnect the engine and the load from one another. In other types of transmissions which are less well known (at least to the public generally), mechanical power is transmitted through some sort of coupling by which the prime mover and the load are always connected to one another. And such couplings are available in either rigid types or in "cushioned" types, the latter being configured to reduce shock during starting, running and stopping.
A specific type of engine-generator set is an example of a machine in which the prime mover and the load are always connected to one another. Exemplary uses for engine-generator sets include providing standby power for hospitals and providing day-to-day on-site power at remote construction sites.
In one arrangement for transmitting mechanical power from an engine to a generator, the engine output shaft has a transmission member connected to it. Such transmission member has radially-inwardly-extending fingers that may be said to "interdigitate" with radially-outwardly-extending projections of a coupling connected to the generator shaft. A separate round, resilient plug is placed between each finger and the adjacent projections to absorb shock and vibration as power is being transmitted from the engine to the generator.
While this arrangement has been generally satisfactory for its intended purpose, some modest shortcomings have been noted. For example, the resilient plugs tend to rotate about their own center axes and as a result, a particular finger and projection do not always contact the same surface of the plug.
Another shortcoming is that all of the plugs are made of the same material which, over time, is attacked by petroleum-based oil. Yet another shortcoming is that the degree of shock absorbency is less than optimum.
A new power-transmitting drive assembly which addresses such shortcomings would be a significant advance in the art.